Question

According to historian/Professor Ronald Takaki, the WWII years were called the “Watershed years.” Please explain what he means and how WWII affected the various APA communities.

Answer 1

According to the historian Ronald Takaki, the end of the Second World War in 1945 is considered to be a watershed event because of its major impacts on global political history. After the end of World War II, the United States and the former USSR entered an arms race over the development of nuclear weapons after the weapons success in helpin the Allied countries win the War against Japan amongst Germany and Itsly. However, with the new global competition over nuclear armaments, there began the period of Cold War between the capitalist states of the United States and it’s supporting countries and the communist and socialist countries led by USSR. As a result, people lived in constant fear that a bomb would be released in their regions. Finally, the Second World War was responsible for a series of geopolitical changes. Some countries of Europe continued to live under a free democracy. But in others, particularly the Balkan areas, the power shifted into the local communist parties. Thus, the world became divided between capitalist and communist societies.

This had implications for the immigrant populations living within the United States as well. According to Takaki, the large settlements of Japanese, Chinese and Indian immigrants in China Towns in the US became epicentres of suspicion and paranoia about the communist ideologies of their respective countries. While before the war, Asians were held in respect in the US society from the economic vantage point, after the War, Asians particularly Japanese immigrants began to be seen as the ‘enemy’. This led to the rise of racial discrimination in the United States.